


Cardinal

by cassandor



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Backstory, Character Analysis, Character Study, Don’t copy to another site, Gen, Headcanon, Meta, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Pre-Rogue One, Prompt Fill, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Tumblr Prompt, rating is because War Stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2019-09-15 11:21:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 9,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16932327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassandor/pseuds/cassandor
Summary: Who are Rogue One?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm making this work to host some prompt fills from tumblr and some posts that are more just headcanons written in prose rather than fics.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An anon asked "how does Cassian show affection"? 
> 
> I have this unshakable headcanon that Cassian, while super (emotionally) reserved and detached (well, sorta - he’s really empathetic and uses that as a tool, but also has to cut himself off or it affects him too much) for what he has to do, is actually really really affectionate with the people he loves. Mainly due to his upbringing, which I imagine him just being the darling of all the adults around.

As the youngest kid in the neighbourhood he’s witnessed and been the subject of great fondness. Pats on the head, cheek squishes, lots and lots of hugs of course.

* * *

He’s also touchy and up in people’s personal space on the job. See how he interacts with Tivik, and even with Jyn at the start he’s already got a hand on her back and guides her way.

* * *

After all this, when he really likes someone he’s almost hesitant to express anything, verbally or physically. He’s said and done all these things before but he never  _meant_  it then. So how can he be sure they know he means it now? How can he be sure  _he_  means it now? 

He can’t.

Jyn, equally reserved, not touchy feely but manages to hug him even in the end - they fumble through it together. Bodhi, I feel though he’s lost so much he hasn’t had to suppress himself in the same ways the other two have, as in while he’s had to suffer under the Empire, I doubt that lower level Imperial cargo pilots don’t share the jovial relationship that Rebel pilots do - he makes up the distance and lets Cassian inch forward.

Cassian’s bad with words, because he can paint the most beautiful pictures when he needs to, for the mission, for the cover, but they all seem to fail when it really matters. 

He’s so painfully aware when people are in his personal space. They could kill him from a farther distance. His nerves are on fire. He can’t reach out.

* * *

He does things, instead. _For them._

Actions, not words. Little favours they might not notice until they pile up, the realization smacking them in the face like  _you did all that for me?_

Stealthy, silent, like the spy that he is. Right when and where he’s needed, but never noticed.

A cleaned blaster, if she doesn’t mind him touching it. Rewiring and the controls so he can fly more smoothly. Rearranging training schedules, rooms, supplies  _just so_ ; so the Guardians have somewhere to pray, to practise. Knowing when supplies ship and when _that_  fruit or  _this_  meat in stock, letting the right person know so that homeworld festival can be celebrated on time.

Most of it he’d learned with Kay. Tweaking his processors, offering the necessary but sometimes awkward knowledge the droid had needed to manuver a human world. _Asking_  if he  _wants_  to power down for the night, so he can fix him, for the flight. Arranging oil baths, neatly filling in scratches, rapping him lightly on the chassis even though, as Kay reminds him, he has no tactical sensors. Cassian does it all, anyways. 

Kay only said thank you the first few times, eventually learned to rebuke Cassian’s offerings with what he could’ve done better.  _Statistically speaking…_ Cassian would only smile in response.

* * *

Cassian shows affection with favours; but he doesn’t expect anything in return. 

(Not because he doubts he’ll live to ask, even though that’s true, but because he frankly doesn’t care. You do things because that’s what you’re supposed to do. What he wants to do. Not out of expectation, never out of expectation. How else could he be in the Rebellion?) 

* * *

Once they figure it out, though… he receives much.

Bodhi blinks and uhms before offering a wide grin and a hesitant hug, and Jyn leaves her thanks in forms of a plate scraped clean and a warm gaze when he stumbles home after a mission. Leia is always just what he needs, stubborn enough to spit out what he’d love to say ( _kriff that dim witted nerfherder, you’re right and they know it)_  but can’t. Baze is affectionate in the exact same way (cleaning weapons and mending clothes and offering a shoulder to rest on), their relationship is beyond speaking, honestly, but they know. They’re too similar, that way. Painfully so, but they bond because Cassian always loved languages, and between Jyn and Bodhi and the Guardians he’s now fluent in four major languages once spoke on Jedha. Chirrut knows all, sees all, is the first to translate Cassian’s love language but keeps the secret under lock and key. His appreciation is shown in his words of advice, and slowly Cassian learns to translate those as well.

He finds out Jyn’s prone to hugging almost as much as Bodhi is, only when nobody’s looking, and that is when the dam inside Cassian breaks. 

* * *

He remembers his father’s touch in his hair, the aunties pinching his cheeks, his mother’s lips on his forehead. All of it comes rushing back.

So he gives, gives, gives it all away. 

* * *

His dearest is lucky then; will always know they’re loved. Cassian’s hands are never far, always ready to reassure and to hold, be held, in the worst of it. His shoulders are to nap on. Pecks on the cheek and the forehead and the knuckles and the parting of hair; cuts and bruises and scars and insecurities. He loves tenderly, gently, reverently. 

Passionately as well, there’s no doubts to the fervent  _depths_  of his love, as an empath the emotion builds between them like a wildfire and he could really lose himself in all that emotion - but it isn’t about being fire, all the time. This is a war, after all, they’re caught between extremes. It’s so much easier, nicer, special, to be gentle. 

Cassian loves by  _loving._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon asked "how does Cassian show his pain". Slight tw (hence the Teen rating) for allusions to torture, harm, and general nastiness of war.

* * *

Cassian does not hurt.

It is a fact, the only thing he can ever rely on. Like a foothold just within his grasp, it’s the only thing keeping him from tumbling down the cliff face into the arms of the death that clings to his heels. 

He’s an expert in untangling truth from falsehood, and in weaving together the two so closely together that the most resolute of listeners, even the very people who taught him the art, can no longer tell which is real and which is false. He deals in information, and lies too are a form of currency. To be caught paying with counterfeit means death.

He knows the difference between truth and belief, but for this one, only this one thing, he will knowingly close his eyes to the difference.

Cassian cannot hurt. 

In matters of life and death, pain is a quick and slippery path from one to another offworlder’s feet on icy streets. 

Crying out when a stormtrooper’s foot lands on your misplaced fingers will only alert him to your hiding spot. They will yank you out from under the floorboards, and then it no longer matters if you scream and cry and whimper or clamp it all between cracked, bleeding lips, because they will strip you bare and wring you like Papa’s washing cloth just to get what they want out of you. Which isn’t always the truth, but they call what they want to hear  _the truth,_  so it is. 

So you keep your mouth shut, then wipe away silent tears as you stick reddened fingers into a handful of snow. 

Lying on your never-full belly with the scratchy rooftop seemingly frozen to the front of your threadbare cloak, the snow you once adored falls on you, its height a testament of how long you’ve lain in wait. You can’t remember when you last felt your toes, and your fingers are seemingly stuck to the cold metal. Enough Festian blood runs in you that you know your toes will live a while longer, and that you’ll be able to pull the trigger when the time comes. Your whole body aches, though, but already you know from experience that even a slight shiver, a tremble, a stretch, will ruin the entire night’s work.

So you will bear it until the shot is fired, and the rush of adrenaline that fills you as you sprint will be enough to render the aches a distant memory.

* * *

It wasn’t always like this. Cassian would cry and someone would be there to soothe him in a matter of seconds. Mama, Papa, yes, but also every tía and tío within earshot. Soon enough, Cassian would grow into the shame that comes with spilled tears, not for any other reason than that Mama always looked so awfully sad when his nose scrunches up and his lower lip beings to quiver.

“You can tell me anything,” she says, inspecting his reddened fingers. “You don’t need to hide anything from me.”   


He just wants to help. The pot of boiling water was past its tipping point, threatening to spill their most precious resource while his mother, unaware, wiped the grime off a tío’s jammed blaster.  Cassian had hoisted it off the flames in his ungainly grip, paying no heed to the scalding metal, and gingerly set it down on a table. He would’ve been proud, not spilling a single drop, but all it took was one glance from Mama and the duck of his eyes before she took his hand in hers, the wince giving himself away.

Best as he tries, he can’t keep his pain a secret. Not yet. 

* * *

Cassian’s heart shudders at the slightest movement of shadows, but he learns to walk among them without betraying the slightest tremble. He’s always been a brave boy, Mama always said so, but now everyone calls him such, so he must be doing something right. Too bad Mama isn’t here to see him. 

Perhaps that might be a good thing. 

The Alliance comes. It wasn’t called that back then. Cassian was there when the declaration of intent to rebel was first drafted out, scratched in painstaking letters then typed out slowly ( _To fight and oppose you and your forces, by any and all means at our disposal…)_

The offworlder’s resistance comes, and they need him (and  _he_ needs them, honestly, what do a bunch of Core Worlders see anything in a fourteen year old orphan but a starved child? A brilliant mind and nimble fingers, according to Draven - then he adds, hesitantly: a noble heart.) 

Cassian has five minutes of glory before he realizes he isn’t entirely what they need. Yet.

So he breaks himself and rearranges the pieces. Literally, sometimes, because it’s better to dislocate a shoulder or a thumb now; better to learn to stifle the red hot pain and jam the bone back into place while surrounded by allies, so that years later when he’s almost-caught he can give his pursuers the slip in the blink of an eye, discarded cuffs left in his wake. 

Draven is torn between waiting until he’s older and running the risk of leaving the boy unprepared. He starts with the mental work, the stamina, the easy things that aren’t easy at all. But as Cassian grows older, he’s the perfect age to slip into the Academy without notice - an opportunity made just for him. The consequences of being caught, though, are so high even Draven’s careful crafted system of labels and codes betray the pain that awaits.

Cassian cannot hurt.

He learns to fight through truth serum, knows where to let a blasterbolt land, memorizes where and how long it takes for a Human, a Twi’Lek, a Togurta, a Chiss, to die from blood loss. Knows better than to leave his quarters without almost every inch of skin covered, knows better than to sleep without a blade under his pillow and his blaster within reach. Ironically, the Empire is the one to teach him the inner workings of their techniques, and Cassian clings onto his foothold, now: he cannot be caught. And one more: if he is caught, he has to die.

Cassian has never been caught. 

Near misses are aplenty, but he never thinks of them like that, because to think that you’ve been caught when you haven’t been yet is the worst thing a spy can do. There’s always a chance, but that chance may lie in blood and grime so he learns to stifle every reflex except that of survival. 

Cassian doesn’t hurt. 

The blasterbolt clips him, leaving a slow trickle of blood in its wake but the most he can do is clamp pressure over the wound as he picks his way over the remains of the village. A gasp and a drop of blood is all it takes for the hounds to find his path, and then it doesn’t matter if he bleeds out or not because the mission will be a failure. His torn skin screams in place of his voice.

* * *

He does hurt, but he knows how to handle the pain. Compartmentalize it, analyze it, know the risks and the treatment and what is a later problem and what is a now problem. In the back of him mind, Kay’s voice blandly dictates his dropping rates of survival and skyrocketing risk of infection.

His body is in his control. His body is his weapon. His mind the holochess master.

But his heart… that stubborn heart of his.

His heart burns with such ferocity his ribcage threatens to collapse around his lungs. 

Killing Imperials should be easy. He shouldn’t care, they certainly don’t care where their lavish furs and glimmering trinkets came from, much less the broken species crushed under their feet. 

Killing itself should be simple. No need to get up close, no cords around the neck or blades through veins - his scope allows him the distance of illusion. Whole lives reduced to mere pixels on a screen. No more, no less. No blood on his gloves or his jacket or on his boots trailing him back to the ship.

And yet. 

Cassian shoves trembling hands into his pockets, the very fingers that were steady moments earlier now too much of a signal to his mental disquiet. Bile burns his throat. He breathes with the cadence of a sniper to quell the nausea.  _In, out._

And when he must stare Death in the face?

The days of throwing up after a close-range murder are as far behind him as the body he’s left, but the unease remains. He focuses on the even thud of his feet, ambling like a disinterested traveler but with the purpose to send him offplanet before the body is found.

This one is too much. They’d thought of him as a friend, trusted him enough to bring them out alive. Cassian feels the disharmonious buzz behind his eyes, the pressure building in the ridge of his nose, is far too aware of what awaits him as soon as he’s into hyperspace. He had hoped, naive child that he once was, that he wouldn’t hurt eventually.

He can’t hurt, shouldn’t hurt, doesn’t want to hurt.

But he does. 

He hurts from the inside, with no wounds or scars to show for it, and that latter thought is a harbinger of something far more dangerous. Only once, twice, he can’t really remember, something about the churning throes of teenagehood mixed in with the tumultuous cycles of war that gave his raw mourning a searing edge.  Wins, losses, bitter relief, muted sadness. 

He no longer has the scars to show for it, sense seeping in with time. Without him living the Rebellion has no life. For now, at least, he must live. 

But he still hurts.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for Bodhi Rook week: Family

**Rook, a night-hued bird that soars in the skies above the Temple, the messenger, the bringer of changes good and bad.**

Bodhi curls into what remains of their nest. 

Father, dead; sister, missing - just him and ammi, now. 

Once upon a time he was able to slip away in the early morning, hang around after class in the alley behind his school - carefully wipe the dust off his speeder and chase the stars with his friends. It didn’t really matter how well he did in school as long as he was passing. Floating in the hazy zone of average wasn’t too hard when half your classmates were missing family members or hadn’t eaten.

**Rook, a mere piece in the games that unfold between sips of black tea in alleys and courtyards and under the Temple roof.**   


Now he studies, to get into the Academy, to get a well paying job, to cover the expenses that crop up in life under Imperial occupation. Oh, the glorious Empire, with its sanitizing durasteel fists - where herbal medicines are nowhere to be found and the drugs that will save his mother’s life are hidden behind piles of credits.   


He is far from home, finds family in his pilot friends. The snobby Core World kids study elsewhere: here, most are poor, just like he is. Some have hearts that bleed, are planning on learning as much as they can from the enemy before turning their own blasters on their masters - Bodhi is not one of them.

Family first, always.

(The birds are all dead, now, the nest in shambles. No more tea-time under the idyllic sway of awnings. No more family. 

He has nothing to lose.) 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for Bodhi Rook Week: Relationships

The pilot. 

This is how he is remembered, as the man who flew Rogue One to Scarif - as the man who flew Erso’s message from Eadu to Jedha, the bird that carried a message of destruction. 

Shadows lurk, whispering that he was an Imperial spy through and through and good riddance, thank the stars that he’d died on Scarif, imagine what he could’ve done if he’d lived. These are the same eyes that glanced at him warily, let poison dribble from the corners of their mouths as the man had warily stepped out into the humid embrace of Yavin IV for the first time. But those voices dwindle out, their stains on his image scrubbed away from Base One’s hangar in the hours before Rogue Squadron comes home.

The defector.

Not the first of them and certainly not the last, but there is a marked increase in the Rebellion’s databank left in his wake. The Empire paints him a traitor, a criminal, some saying he’s rotting away in Wobani or worse. Folk-heroes have their ways of living on. He’s a Jedhan boy, and Jedha are a people, not just a planet. Wherever the Force is, so is Jedha. So they carry his story, even if all they know is  _once there was a pilot and he saved the galaxy._

They usually know more.

_I was carrying my groceries when I crossed paths with the speedsters, and they sent my bags flying and tore open the loaf of bread I bought with the last of my credits. But one of them found me, and paid for our dinner for the next week with his winnings._

He was fast, but during exams he kriffed up. I think he did it on purpose, because TIEs are killing machines. He wanted Imperial credits, not an Imperial lifestyle. But we didn’t know back then even cargo ships would destroy Jedha. 

_He always tried to finish his homework on time, even helped me out when he could. But he’d show up late some days and others you’d know he’d woken up early to race and lied about it being an extracurricular class._

That Rook boy, always peering at the world behind his mother and sister’s skirts. Always in trouble, always in the wrong place at the wrong time, But such a sweet boy, and nobody could ever resist that pout of his, and he definitely used it for his benefit. We didn’t mind.

_He wasn’t the smartest, wasn’t the strongest. Sometimes he was the fastest but he was always, always, the kindest._

We all thought he was a traitor.

_Some of them thought he was a traitor, but anyone with any sense, anyone who was poor enough to know what a last chance looked like, every mother and father who sent off their children to the Academy so the rest of their children could eat, they knew._

The hero.

So many of Jedha’s children sought refuge within their own oppressor. At least the hand that fed them would only hurt them if they stepped out of line, and Bodhi Rook, as most remember, was actually fairly good at staying within the lines. Sure, he would stumble and his hands would tremble, but anyone that had ever seen him fly would know his grip and path to be firm and true. Careful, attentive.  


He defected. 

Mild mannered, sweet, kind, Bodhi, abandoned the Empire. Some say it was easier because his sister had fled to be with the rebels and his mother had already succumbed to her illness, but there were still aunts and uncles and cousins and neighbours and classmates that were mere steps away from the danger the name Rook might bring.

A cautionary tale to some.

_You will suffer. Didn’t you hear what the Partisans did to him? Didn’t you hear his stutter? He lost his mind._

A story of hope to others. 

_We can escape. He left, and he was one of us. Sure, they’ll be more careful now, but if he could smuggle out info and we’re just leaving… we have a chance._

A call to action for the rest. 

_We can make a difference._

The pilot.

This is how he is remembered, as the man who flew Rogue One to Scarif - as the man who flew Erso’s message from Eadu to Jedha, the bird that carried a message of hope.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an anon, rather prophetically, asked me if I could make a Rogue One trilogy, what it would be about (this was before the Cassian show announcement!)

Bodhi’s life is the life of any member of the diaspora. The film opens to a not idyllic but comparatively peaceful (loud and bright and colourful, but peaceful) world, heavy with faith and layers and layers of ancient history. So many languages, cultures, small conflicts and great architecture, so much history. You stand at the heart of Jedha and at once feel like a tiny pinprick in the ocean of the Force, a small insignificant point in the grand sprawl of galactic history. But you also feel at home, loved. These people are kind, the children playing football in the alleys call you  _older brother_  when they ask you to pass the ball back to them. Sure, there are pickpockets and tricksters looking to swipe credits from starry-eyed offworld tourists, but this is life. Jedha is Life itself.

Bodhi is born into a loving family. Three faces peer into his cradle: his mother, father, older sister. And then the barrage of aunts and uncles and grandparents coming to gift treats and trinkets and blessings. His life is gold and brown and red and orange and yellow; warm even in the cold, well fed even while experiencing no great Coruscanti luxury. His father sinks in and out of the picture. War is brewing, the Force has a metallic taste to it, but it’s like the clouds on a sunny day. Offering shade, almost. Something that can be ignored.

With the crack of a whip, the buzz of an electrostaff, the Empire crackles into existence. Bodhi is five years old, and his film would be about how things shift. Bit by bit, signed away on this or that document, his favourite dried fruit rising high enough in price that his mother can no longer afford it.

His father disappears entirely. 

Life as always is about school and getting good marks, but getting good marks is hard when you’re hungry and your mother seems to hunch more with every passing day. She hides it under layers and layers of shawls, a sharp voice, a demanding demeanor, but you know.

So you chase after freedom. Flying high, flying fast, flying in secret. There’s the added bonus of prize money, and with those extra credits you can buy your favourite fruit again. Your sister promises not to tell your mother, her eyes sparkle. She gets into too much trouble these days, always talking back to troopers and questioning every new law that passes through her classroom like wildfire. 

She leaves to join the Partisans, and Bodhi’s mother fills the void with discipline. This is how freedom dies. Chipped away, bit by bit. No thunderous applause here, only stormtroopers knocking on doors and endless forms to fill.  _Yes, I have a criminal record. No, it won’t affect my commitment to the Academy, in fact, I think it proves how well of a pilot I will be._

This is getting too long already, but here is the last scene. Galen Erso, pressing the datachip into Bodhi’s open palms.

“It’s not too late to do something about it.” 

He’s reassuring himself as much as Bodhi. 

“You’re the pilot. Now, go home.” 

Bodhi makes a fist around the chip, and then Jedha fills the screen of his viewport. He faces Jedha and feels like a tiny pinprick in the ocean of the Force, a small insignificant point in the grand sprawl of galactic history.

We know what happens next.

* * *

Cassian’s movie, well, I wrote a whole backstory for him, but instead of focusing on his childhood I’d rather it focus on his time in the Rebellion. While Bodhi’s movie would be about what regular life under the Empire would be like (and how it came to be) Cassian’s would be “regular” life in the Rebellion. He is no Senator, no Princess, no Jedi. He does the dirty work. 

His movie, I think, would be how the mission to Kafrene came to be. How did the Rebellion know to look for Jyn Erso? How did Cassian establish contact with Tivik? Lots and lots of character cameos, there’s Bail and young Leia, Ahsoka, Enfys and the Cloud Riders, and extended period of time in the Imperial forces where he brushes shoulders with Han Solo. (this is literally the plot of one of my fics but yeah) 

This Cassian has done unspeakable things for the Rebellion, but the thing that shatters his resolve, his hope entirely, the thing that makes him loses his faith so much that he decides not to follow orders on Eadu, that happens here. I don’t know what it is - maybe Jenoport? (I always think Jenoport is either a massacre or, as I’ve written, an incident where Cassian failed to kill/rescue someone and they got tortured by the Empire.) 

Kay is here, obviously, because  _obviously_  Kay and Cassian have known each other since fourteen year old Cassian dodged his gangling droid arm and climbed up his chassis and forcibly shut the droid off for the first and very last time in their relationship. These are the moments of light in the movie, plenty of snark, but after Jenoport there’s a moment that really solidifies the significance of their relationship. See, Cassian sees Kay as another person, so when he offers to do that memory wipe, Cassian knows it’ll change how the droid thinks of him and it’s just a bad power dynamic. He says no.

In keeping with the others, this movie would end with a mission report to Draven. He’s received his next assignment, the details have been sent to him already. Cassian activates his datapad, the blue holo the only source of light in his dark cockpit. It’s a headshot, the woman dressed in a prisoner’s jumpsuit.

He looks at the name.

_Jyn Erso._

We know what happens next.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @dasakuryo requested Jyn + the smell of freshly baked bread

Temptation is hunger’s dearest companion.

She can’t afford to indulge in the pause her nose tells her she desperately needs. She can’t possibly allow her eyelids to flutter shut, to cut away her most valued sense as she pushes past storefronts and alleyways.

The scent trails her nonetheless; wafting around her as the embodiment of seduction.

She can’t even imagine letting her guard down, much less hesitate at the entrance to the bakery. To linger, to wonder, to picture what the fresh loaf might look like; might taste like. Might feel like; in her mouth, in her never-full stomach.

Warm and fulfilling and sweet. Things the galaxy has denied her for a very long time; things she denies herself now as she walks.

Her mouth waters, her stomach gurgles; but her feet keep marching forward.

She must keep moving; away from this crowd, where sticky fingers lurk and leery gazes linger. She cannot afford these little luxuries of carelessness, much less an actual slice of that wondrous, tantalizing, bread.

Besides: the price might just be her life.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @dasakuryo requested Cassian + trying to walk on ice.

Frigid air seeps through his parka. After this many hours his carefully selected layers are as useful as scrap flimsi. He bites back a shiver, muscles tensing. He’s tempted to flex his fingers, coax blood back into them, but he’s afraid even the slightest movement will cost him everything.

Then, suddenly; his goal, his target, is within reach.

Gaze steady, breath measured, his world shrinks to a pinprick of focus.

He pulls the trigger.

The body falls with a thud into fresh snow, sending a puff of flakes up into the night air. Cassian slides off the roof, scampering down the stairs; and is already dashing down the icy walkways by the time he hears the first sirens.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @dasakuryo requested Bodhi + Dust floating in golden sunlight

 

Behind his eyelids eternity dances, sparkling.

His curtains still swaying after his mother yanks them to the side, letting Jedha’s early morning engulf his room in golden flames.

The ray of golden afternoon light teasing him as glare on his datapad’s screen. He scratches away at his homework, the tape holding his stylus together rubbing against his middle finger.

His sister leaving him to do all the housework, his mind wandering as he sweeps up the dust that settles on every free surface. It’s the construction, they all say, but his mother believes he’s just being lazy.

In the pilot’s seat, the setting star renders the scratches and dents of his viewport in painful clarity. Riddled with imperfections, but the speeder is good enough to win. Flying over sand dunes, the shoddy appearance doesn’t matter, only the love he pours into its parts.

Red and gold and yellow and orange and a thousand different shades of brown all brought alive by starlight. On Jedha even a measly fleck of dust looks ethereal. Glitter. Like stardust. 

Here the Force lives, thrives, sings, touching every thing.

The Empire is black, white, grey. Pristine, no room for golden air. Just ventilation that leaves a metallic taste in Bodhi’s mouth. Like blood.

He hurtles through the vaccum of space. Fumes and grease that he scrubs and sweeps but never leaves. Chilly but not like home. No light, just warnings that blink on and off. Unnatural, erratic, like his breathing.

Then, Jedha again, so changed with a coating of something that settles everywhere. He’s lazy. It’s his fault. His fault. In the cell, catching in his eyelashes. Then sparks, real ones, not motes caught by the sun.

Jedha again, only for it to be swallowed by light. Caving in, dust becomes dirt becomes sand becomes soil becomes the whole entire moon.

Bodhi opens his eyes, and Jedha is gone.

Stardust. Bloodied, burnt, stardust.

He can’t shake the image out of his head. He can close his eyes and pretend he’s still warm in bed, sunlight orange against the back of his eyelids. Mother pulling the curtains back. Dust motes trapped by sunlight. Stardust made from flecks of stars, lit by stars. 

It’s all gone. Now, nothing. Become nothing. Is nothing once again.

The Force touches everything on Jedha, has touched him, bound him into it. So he follows its call, soon after, and is stardust.

Bright, glittering, caught in the Force like his cocoon of blankets.

It’s all gone, yet here once again. Tiny, insignificant Bodhi, set aflame, grows, becomes, a star.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an angsty headcanon nobody asked for

It’s an accidental discovery, unearthed in the remains of a fire. A bit of charcoal held by curious fingers. Haphazard lines, a child’s attempt at recreating the world around him. 

Cassian draws, and draws well. On frosted-over transparisteel, as he waits for Papá to come back home. In the snow that piles by their doorstep, gloved fingers doodling ships and stars.

Mamá wipes the black smears off his fingers and chin for the third time that day.   


“I should see if anyone’s got an old datapad,” Mamá says, when she thinks he isn’t listening. “With a stylus.”

“To draw?”   


“To learn Basic and to slice, but…” she wets her lips, peering away from helping Travia hunt through salvaged droid parts to check in on Cassian putting together ships of sticks and twine in his bedroom. He’s still an infant in her eyes, still stumbling over words in their native tongue in the way that babies do. “… I remember seeing an old stash of flimsi in the factory stores. Everything’s digitized anyways, he can draw on the back of those old shipping forms. Who knows, it might be useful some day.”  


She wishes she doesn’t have to always think about  _usefulness._ Let her son just be, to grow into a wonderful young man shielded from the terrors of poverty and Imperial rule. She does her best, but she knows it won’t last forever. A mother knows, and Cassian will not sit by and watch the galaxy suffocate around him.

* * *

Cassian doesn’t have time for the luxury of art, after Fest falls, and learns to fight down the temptation to stick his finger in the dirt and carve out the shape of wishblooms as he lies in wait with his rifle. 

He steals glimpses into the lives of Core-world children, the ones with fancy styluses with interchangeable nibs and datapads with adjustable screen thickness, and realizes he can do much better with just a burnt stick. He tilts his chin upwards, briefly, to inspect looming statues and priceless splotches of paint, and realizes the Empire does not know art, for it does not know truth nor freedom. 

Leaving any material evidence of his existence is a death sentence. Cassian knows he can’t afford to do anything that would betray his identity.

He can’t afford to forget, either.

He’s terrified of forgetting. 

* * *

Cassian saves up scraps of flimsi, binds them into a little notebook with wire lifted from  the carcass of an old security droid. Ink is harder to find, it mostly being reserved for ceremonial signings and fancy flourishes on invitations, but one cover has him working as an apprentice in a hobby store that faces the office Draven wants him to monitor. With the credits he earns, not his Intelligence allowance, he buys himself a pen that’s he’s assured will last a very long time. 

The first person he draws is his mother. It’s a desperate attempt to preserve her thick cascading waves, her determined raven eyes, the soft curves of her mouth. It’s her face that repeats the most among the pages, in an attempt to further immortalize her features as his drawing skills slowly improve. It’s only at the sixth iteration that he realizes he’s started drawing someone else, an amalgamation of all the kindly women he’s met over the years. 

He tears that page out. 

Curled up in a bunk one night, he tries to remember what his father looked like. The word  _papá_ is foreign in his mouth, and he can only remember a relentless stream of people touching his hair and cheeks and telling him  _you look and sound so much like Jeron._ He’s told he has Mamá’s nose and bearing, but he can’t bear to think about it too much. He bites at the back of the pen, his papá remaining a rounded shape with warm brown eyes and a few strokes of a moustache. 

Between those pages lie the faces of Fest. Tíos, tías, their children, regardless of whether they’re his relative by blood. Most times their faces are a scribble, much like his father’s. He differentiates them by other things. Tía Maria holds a tray of steaming tamales, Alejandro shows off his fancy boots - a reminder of how high up Cassian could see at that age. 

Wishblooms adorn the corners, black and white, his attempts at rendering their glittering veins proven futile. Tall snowbanks and lopsided snow-tookas, the iceflies that always smacked into his face during Fest’s sorry excuse of a warm season.

He tries to draw his childhood home. He remembers the fire in the kitchen, where lunch and dinner both cooked slowly, and the designs of the fuzzy blankets he nuzzled into during the coldest of nights. The frame of his parent’s bed, the light spilling in from his bedroom window, the door that always squeaked when tío Metias walked in.

Cassian can’t remember the house itself. His only clear memory is of it burning. 

* * *

When Cracken gives him the license to kill when he returns from the Academy - even though he’d already blown up his fair share of Imperial buildings on Fest and shot no small number of stormtroopers since - Cassian finds the best way to get the ghosts out of his head is to capture them on flimsi.

Having a bound book of portraits - of missing and dead Imperials, gangsters, and suspected rebel dissidents - would be a death sentence if caught. Instead, he scribbles down one feature. 

A thin nose. Bushy eyebrows. A favourite meal. A bird’s eye view of the city they’d died in. The guard-creature he’d had to poison. The paintings hanging in their foyer. Carefully recalled detailed of the statues on their office table. Strokes of black for the tattoo that peeked out under their collar. 

He has a pile of discarded portraits stashed under his bunk, squashed between the thin mattress and the creaky wire frame. There are a few stuffed in the crevices of his U-Wing, once he’s able to fly solo missions. Crumpled and stained with greasy fingerprints, they’re reminders of the worst, the nights where he can’t fight off his ghosts before he makes it back to Base One. 

On cleaning day he’ll gather them up, ducking under the small alcove under his bed as Kay tuts about breaking protocol, and use them as kindling for the next cooking fire. He’ll look over them once more, set them aflame, and close his eyes to the sparks. 

Cassian thinks it helps put his mind at ease. The wounds heal, but the scars remain, and he’ll have to learn to live with them. Sparks dance along the back of his eyelids, the heat burning the back of his hands, nipping at his nose.

He forgets their names, their faces, their voices  - at least, to the extent that would be allowable for the Rebellion’s most valued and the Empire’s most wanted spy - but can never forget their impact. On his life, and the galaxy.

* * *

Cassian loses his notebook. 

The first few months he kept it on his person, hidden away in the depths of his pockets until he realized it wouldn’t be prudent. Despite being well into his mid-teens, most of the rebels still see him as a child and to carry around sketches of his parents would only damage what little respect he’s managed to scrape by for himself.

Little does he know the others have the luxury of carrying holos with them.

He hid it under his mattress, next, but later, the juxtaposition of his long lost family sitting alongside his targets and terminated informants is too much to bear. 

Cassian takes to hiding it under the old floorboards beneath his bed. 

He shifts from hideouts to secret bases to rural outposts like water flowing through its cycle, and he’s always careful to find a safe nook within reach for his notebook. In his pillow, behind a false wall, tucked between drawers.

Cassian never takes it with him on missions, no matter how long the infiltration, or on his ship. Too much of a risk, for wandering eyes and ill-intentioned hands to unearth. Better to know it’s safe, somewhere.

* * *

He’s in his late teens, old enough to know better than to put all his hopes in one place. He’s on Paucris, on his knees frantically digging through his meager excuse of a closet. He’d dug a hole and placed his pair of work boots over it.

But the notebook is gone.

Cassian falls back, hugging his knees. It’s no good to waste all this time looking for something that isn’t even supposed to exist. It’s been the better part of an hour already, and his usually neat bunk looks like a disaster zone. Dinnertime has crept by, and if he leaves for the mess now he might be able to get the last of today’s rations.

He can’t ask anyone about the book’s whereabouts for its existence was a secret, can’t suspect anyone of stealing it for it had no monetary value. It wasn’t wise of Cassian to grow fond of a physical object, not when the only thing he’s only managed to keep for this long is his life. It’s a hard lesson to learn, but necessary, as Draven would say. 

He just wished he’d saved that first drawing of his mother.

Cassian sits, staring up at the too-big jackets hanging over his head, and like every other loss in his life, mourns and moves on. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Cassian always trusted Jyn. Right from the very start.**

See, he’s a spy. And if there’s one thing spies have to do is guess people’s motivations at the very first glance. 

A fleeting moment in the darkness.

The glint in one’s eyes, the hard set of their jawline. What are they thinking? What will they do with that knowledge?

Guessing wrong means death. 

An old blade under the ribs, a shaking blaster to the back, a wire around the neck, something slipped into a bubbling toast; so on and so forth. Quick and easy, undiscovered; or drawn out in an Imperial holding cell if they catch him without his lullaby. (Which they won’t, becaues he sleeps light, fully clothed, with it sitting on his shoulder within reach of his tearing bite.) 

**Cassian Andor has made a life out of not trusting people.**

He can trust them  _enough._  

Trusting them _enough_  to make it to the finish line for this mission, after which… They can turn away with confusion, anger, a lethal wound. It doesn’t matter, unless he needs to maintain the relation for future missions, so credits will keep them glued together. Sometimes a soft smile, whatever  _motivates_ them.

Jyn - she’s the key to Saw’s every lock, she’s the one thing Galen will do anything for.  _His motivation._  Draven said to kill Galen, and Jyn won’t be happy about that, much less himself. But that’s life. 

She doesn’t trust him, obviously, but does he trust her?

As Kay says, he would be an idiot to give her the blaster. She’d whacked Melshi in the head with a shovel the first chance she got. 

**He lets her keep it.**

**He trusts her.**

Enough. (To not shoot him when he isn’t looking.)

He keeps a figurative hand on his blaster nonetheless. He’s observant, not stupid. She’s smart, and lethal, and two brains are better than one, so he hands her the viewfinders, too. He’s wary, but not stupid. Kepeing her in the dark would be a waste. 

And he saves her life, and she his, and again and again in a cycle of push and pull and conflicting balance, until they’re on Eadu.

Galen sabotaging from the inside is a highly plausible feat. He’s intelligent and grieving. Cassian would expect no less of Jyn’s father. If two of her parents go down in blazing glory then the third, while content to wither away in a cage, won’t be afforded any less of a legacy. They all burn.

Cassian never likes to kill, because he’s empathetic (because empathy is what makes him good at getting people to trust him, because how do you understand what motivates someone without understanding how they feel?). If Jyn’s right, and Galen is the man who sent Bodhi as a messenger, then this assassination will be twice as heavy on Cassian’s shoulders. **But there’s no proof,**  and as far as Rebel Intelligence knows, he’s responsible for every single death on Jedha that wasn’t by Cassian’s own hand.  **His instincts know she’s telling the truth.** You can see it in Cassian’s dejected gaze when she tells him there’s no proof.

Duty calls.

Jyn does not fully trust him, but he’s been trusted  _enough._ Through saving her and  _trusting her;_ so the perceived betrayal stings.

She was wrong to trust him. At the end of every mission, that’s what Cassian walks away thinking.  **They shouldn’t have trusted me. But I made them let their guard down long enough for me to hurt them.**

It stings for him too, because he follows his instincts and  **doesn’t**  follow orders, doesn’t shoot the man, and he dies anyways. All for naught, because Jyn holds him responsible. She can’t see what he sees, can’t see how the Rebellion sees Galen even though it’s exactly how she saw him when she spat out  _I’d like to think he’s dead._

Now he really is gone.

**The fragile trust is broken.**

Somewhere in the heat and the cold rain **it mends,** since Jyn realizes yes,  **Cassian was right, I should be doing something about this,**  and Cassian’s on the high of following his instincts and knows 1) The Rebellion will NOT go to Scarif and 2) If they don’t go to Scarif, the Rebellion will be ruthlessly obliterated.

All this time, Cassian’s really trusted her and Jyn’s too worn out from existing to know it, because when he sees her in the hanger the look on her face is of someone ready to face a whole army.  ~~Which, incidentally, is what she’s facing.~~

They’re probably going to die. So while he can’t say anything else conclusively, because he’s only known her for a short time and can’t really, truly, know her, he can tell her this.

**“I believe you.”**


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon asked for the squad + birthdays

**Jyn**  thinks she was born on Coruscant. 

She has no reason to believe otherwise and the Ersos felt no need to correct her - besides, it’s what all the documentation says. They follow the standard time system anyways, which is a weighted average around the Core and their home of Coruscant. It doesn’t make a difference to anyone, especially her. Her birthdays with her parents are as just as lovely as one would think they would be, with plenty of new toys Galen found, store-bought cake that Lyra frosted, smiles, and plenty of holos for proof. Krennic sends them a bottle of wine the first birthday they celebrate under the Empire with the tag “for your daughter” and her parents are befuddled…

Lah’mu brings an undercurrent of urgency, as if they have to make the most out of these moments. With Saw she loses track, feels the years slipping by. Puts down guesses on her fake scandocs - whatever feels right, whatever will let her get the job done. It’s not that he ignores her, it’s that birthdays aren’t even on the radar in his world. He stills gives her gifts but throughout the year. Tiny splurges of credits he justifies as being useful - her scarf, a better pair of truncheons, a sturdy pair of boots, a new datapad. Things that aren’t hemmed hand me downs, for once. 

By the time she’s on her own, she doesn’t know when her birthday is. She tacks on a year to her last known age every new year.

(Later, Cassian will hunt down the sole doc that confirms the existence of Jyn Erso - her birth certificate, which still lists Coruscant as her birthplace. Even later, Jyn comes across an old record that briefly mentions something about Republic scientists being detained on Vallt, and that they’d had a child while in custody.

“I was born in jail,” she’ll say with quiet horror, realizing she’d been meant for imprisonment from the very beginning. Chirrut will remind her that also means she’d always been meant to break free and find her family.)   


* * *

**Cassian**  is the baby of the family. 

He’s the first born grandchild on one side of the family, and his parents are well loved by the entire neighbourhood -Papá’s coveted advice and Mamá’s  vast array of skills are the perfect recipe for making friends. Fest may not be even in the vicinity of wealthy, but where kindness is currency it doesn’t matter. He gets new clothes, scarves, boots, mittens, all made with love and care. (They’re later reworked or passed down as he outgrows them, but he keeps his favourite blanket until the Empire strips him of the right to innocence.) His most beloved present is a stuffed Ewok, bought from the biggest city on the planet. One year he gets his own datapad, and the Ewok watches over him as he learns Basic and how to slice. There is always plenty of food and treats to go around, every year, at least on this day and the festival days.

As the sickness gets worse, less and less people show up to the gatherings, until Cassian notices his birthdays are pseudo-Resistance meetings. He asks Mamá to stop the gatherings after that, because while sharing laughter and food together is always a good thing, lately all they’ve shared is stories of death.

The last time he thinks about his birthday is when the Rebel Alliance asks him to fill out a form. Fest’s timekeeping system is different, and it takes him an entire evening sitting with a star map and some Imperial estimates to calculate the conversion to Standard.

He bumps the date up by a few months to add a year to his age. Twelve is still a child - thirteen is a teenager, ready for war.

He doesn’t tell Kay anything about it on purpose. Kay never asks, sensing that it would be probably better for Cassian’s survival, that way. But the droid does find the file, and he ensures that every year, on Cassian’s stated birthday, that he’s at least on a low risk mission where they can fondly bicker and talk about things other than the probability of surviving the war. Sometimes he’ll interfere with Intelligence’s attempts to contact him if the need arises.

The  _actual_  last time he thinks about his birthday is moving through the thick crowds of Kafrene, when he passes a woman wearing a cloak with stitching and colouring uncomfortably similar to one of his gifts. He doesn’t have the time to wonder.

(Later, Bodhi will bake Cassian a birthday cake, based on the information Jyn provided to him with the caveat of never asking how she found it.)

* * *

**Bodhi** is a city boy, with holobooks of birthdays past stuffed into his closet. 

Gap toothed grins every year, though his father and his sister eventually disappear from the photo frame. Eventually he celebrates with friends, who don’t constantly remind him he’s a year closer to writing his entrance exams for the Academy. 

He wakes early enough to get his blessings, shuffles around awkwardly as Ammi gifts him school supplies for the next year. She insists he takes a holo with her, while the neighbour boy that takes the picture stifles a giggle at Bodhi’s expression. He’ll stay long enough to answer phone calls from extended family and gift treats to the neighbours, then bolt out the door at the earliest opportunity, his favourite homemade cake still sweet in his mouth.

The Academy brings the thrills of living with your friends full time and first misadventures with alcohol - that tastes all the better when it’s prohibited in the dorms. Once they’re old enough to fly on their own and go to real bars, have real parties, Bodhi has the time of his life. A boy kisses him, his best friends slather him in cake, they howl on rooftops.

Something is missing, but the zing of alcohol masks the taste.

Eventually he realizes what he’s avoiding. He’ll answer his mother’s calls on his birthday, where she’s bleary from a long day of surviving and he’s anticipating a new day and would rather do anything but talk. 

He knows she’s fading, he knows he should visit. He can’t just bring himself to face her, can’t walk through Jedha’s streets with the Imperial insignia on his shoulder. 

Eventually he accepts what he’s pushing away, but by then it’s far too late.

(Bodhi’s the only one who actually knows when his birthday is, and is rather horrified the others don’t. He rather content to let it slip by as he works on the underside of his X Wing, or at least let it quietly pass over drinks with his friends - even though Jyn and Cassian both don’t actually drink - but what he’s surprised with is an actual, honest-to-Force, party.) 

* * *

**The Guardians** don’t believe in frivolities such as birthdays, but that doesn’t stop the younglings from knowing their birth star and furtively celebrating. The teachers don’t mind, really, because how can one be in tune with the living Force if they do not know companionship and charity - so they turn a blind eye to the students muffling giggles behind the sleeves of their robes.

Baze presses a package into Chirrut’s palms. The resulting smile on Chirrut’s face is so sly he wonders if the blind student had reached out into the Force and discerned its contents.

“For you.” He was never a child of many words.  


Chirrut sits on the stone bench under the Temple window and runs his hands over the creased brown paper.

“Ah, Baze, you know I cannot draw.”   


Baze looks dismayed at his friend for the whole moment it takes for him to realize he’s joking. 

“I should’ve just given you the paper.”  


Chirrut laughs, fingers deftly pulling apart the adhesive, the paper crinkling as he does so. His expression changes as the cord snags around his finger, and his smile softens into one of appreciation as he runs his hands across the beads.

“A necklace?”  


“I carved the stones.” They aren’t all that pretty, just muddy browns and dull greys he’d nicked from the Temple gardens, but it wouldn’t matter.  


“I can tell. I… it’s… they’re imbued with your Force imprint.”  


“I don’t think that’s a thing.”  


Chirrut smirks. Baze huffs, glancing at his hands in his lap, only to be consoled by his friend’s hand on his shoulder. “Thanks, Baze, I love it.”

Baze looks up under hooded eyes at Chirrut.

“Happy star-day, Chirrut.”   


Then they are too old for birthdays, and it becomes harder and harder to find joy and time under the Empire. “The more reason for it to be found,” Chirrut will say, but all they exchange on star-days are gentle touches and whispers of sweet nothings.

(Later, Cassian and Bodhi will sit down with Kay and do the math to find out what star-days are in Standard. Baze grumbles about the unnecessary effort, since “old men like us don’t care for birthdays,” while Chirrut chuckles.

“Speak for yourself,  _old man_.”) 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon requested Cassian + how they came into the  ~~world~~ galaxy

Fest’s seasons are based not on the absence of snow, but the relative abundance of it. 

The blizzard season brings weeks of white-out conditions, where efforts to check in on neighbours are often rendered futile by snowdrifts piled higher than the average Human’s waist. The other half of the year is more forgiving - frigid nights may be more common than snowy days, but it’s in the bright season that the longest, warmest day of the year rolls around, enabling Festians to light bonfires and spend time outdoors with family both of blood and friendship.

To the offworlder, both seasons are particularly terrible and should be avoided at all cost. Fest’s later Imperial governors adhere to this belief. 

Festians, with their lack of fear - but abundance of respect - for Death, see the cold and snow as merely another fact of Life. It just needs to be accounted for. 

Wishblooms are found in abundance on either end of the blizzard season, but by nature’s law the appearance of the flowers are dictated by the planet’s Life-Force, not the changing seasons. White for new Life, Black for impending Death, a rule as old as the galaxy.

So the way to best mark the passage of time is by the positioning of stars in Fest’s night sky, which for half a year is a haze of bluish white if you’re lucky enough to be able to step outside without being blown over. Incidentally, the conundrum led to the expression “like telling time in a blizzard,” or as Cassian would explain to his droid companion after a particularly infuriating mission, “karking difficult and also stupid”.

Luckily for Esperanza and Jerónimo Andor, not only is their first child born as the last blizzard of the year tapers into a snow-laden breeze, they’re also gifted with the luxuries of modern day technology and timekeeping. Still, they announce their son’s birthday as being “at the end of the blizzard season, nestled by the buds of next year’s wishblooms.”

Jerón’s grandmother, effusive in blessing the delivery of her third great-grandchild, takes it upon herself to explain the significance:

“Born as the year is dying, but after the blizzards are over - the boy represents a new hope at the price of old life. He heralds a better future, like the buds that grow from last year’s remains. Name him wisely.” 

They name him Cassian, for a hero from tales of old, for a martyr lost but revered. 

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to yell @ me about rogue one/star wars headcanons both in the comments and in my tumblr inbox @cassianandorjyn!


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